Riverdance tells the story of Irish history, creating a visual masterpiece intertwining the movement of people to and from the island with how the dance style has evolved over time. The production has been telling this story for 20 years now (almost my whole existence!) which is why I'm so excited to finally be able to see the show in person.
Scene One: In a primitive and powerful world, our ancestors knew fear and joy and fire, worked wood and stone and water to make a place they could call home. The first peoples knew the world as a place of power, their songs and dances and stories are negotiations with elemental powers. The first half of this performance shows them coming to terms with the world and with themselves
Scene Two: The sun brings life and light and fire, the opening dance sequence celebrates this benevolent masculine power. The sun is the light of morning, exuberant and clear.
Scene Three: There is also that other primeval mystery, the salmon swimming upstream, the blind urgings of nature, heart yearning to heart. We need and sustain each other; we keep this knowledge in song since the beginning of time.
Scene Four: Sensual, nurturing, independent and fierce, the power of women as they celebrate themselves, as they challenge men in a dance of empowerment.
Scene Five: A lone piper mourns Cú Chulainn, the implacable Bronze Age warrior, the great hero of Celtic myth.
Scene 6: The brute power of elemental forces, beyond human control, beyond human understanding.
Scene 7: In ancient Ireland fire and pride and beauty come out of the south, from the land of the sun. The power of the sun invests itself in the passion of the dancer.
Scene 8: The myth of Mad Sweeney, Suibhne or Shivna, haunts Ireland since mediaeval times. Driven by forces inside himself, outside himself, a man dances desperately in the power of the moon. The powers are cruel and arbitrary, female and savage.
Scene 9: The wheel of the seasons turns slowly, from harvest through dormant winter into the miracle of spring. New growth, exhilaration, the world turns and is made new again.
Scene 10: Our story begins in the evocation of the Riverwoman, it moves through the dawn of history as the river moves through the land. As the power of the river grows, as the barren earth becomes fertile, as men and women grow in their sense of themselves, our story rises until it floods the world in a vital, joyous riot of celebration.
Scene 11: War, famine and slavery shattered the ancient bonds between people and place. Forced dislocations marked and altered the histories of the native peoples. As we came into history we learned to guard what we valued, to accommodate ourselves to others, to learn new ways of being ourselves, to embrace new kinds of courage. Cast out and momentarily orphaned, we learned to belong to the world.
Scene 12: From the mid-19th century, hunger and famine and ambition drove the Irish out of their home island, across the Atlantic to a New World. Lover parted from lover, families and communities were torn apart.
Scene 13: While those souls who were forced to emigrate were faced with the heartbreak of separation, their human spirit was often lifted by a defiant hope at the prospect of a new life.
Scene 14: The music and dance that forged a sense of identity are now exposed to new and unfamiliar cultures. Ultimately, in the blending and fusion that follows, the emigrants find that the totality of human experience and expression is greater even than the sum of its many diverse parts. From the darkness a lone voice sings and is then joined by other immigrants, reflecting the universal yearning of the dispossessed wherever they make their home.
Scene 15: The wealth of the poor is in song, dance and story. Under the street-lamps in the new cities the dancers perform with pride in their heritage, curious to see what other traditions bring, struggling to bridge the gap between old dreams and new realities.
Scene 16: Meeting the new, what we learn first is that there is something familiar in what is strange, something strange in what we had thought familiar. A tune from another place, another lifetime, can turn and haunt in the heart and inspire the dances from a distant homeland.
Scene 17: In the cauldron of the big city, the pulsing energy of the streets is reflected in the fiery Latin dance rhythms.
Scene 18: The river flows full circle from sea to sky to mountain and back home. Collecting, gathering, arriving enriched, fulfilled, ready to start its journey once more.
Scene 19: Always the child of the emigrant feels the tug of the home place; always that child feels the urge to return. What she or he brings there is a sustaining knowledge: we are who we once were, we are who we have become.
Scene 20: With newfound confidence and pride, the child of the emigrant carries treasured memories home to their birthplace. A long journey ends under a native sky, a new and richer journey has taken its place.
Scene 21: We are one kind. We are one people now, our voices blended, our music a great world in which we can feel everywhere at home, Ní neart go chur le cheile, together we are strong.
~burn bright~
Jess
p.s. I have also seen Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games, a touring show choreographed by Michael Flatley (who was the originator of Riverdance) on Broadway and had an incredible time. I'll write about that experience in the future. I was able to meet some of the dancers (and their families!) during and after the show, along with meeting Mr. Michael Flatley himself! Amazing experience. And later that night I saw Chachi Gonzalez (hip-hop dancer, her crew won America's Best Dance Crew (ABDC) a few years ago) browsing in H&M and got to chat with her. It was a fantastic, dance-filled night!